


Heritage

by plainchelle



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Depression, Gen, Kid Fic, Kid!Stiles, Mental Health Issues, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-04-12
Packaged: 2018-01-15 19:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1316422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plainchelle/pseuds/plainchelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His second grade teacher assigned them a family tree to fill out. All the students were to make a list of how many members were in their family, how they were related, and if the family member were still alive.</p><p>Stiles got to his mother and paused. He wrote:</p><p>'Claudia Stilinski, mom, sometimes'</p><p>That was the first call home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Heritage

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this as something to do since I haven't written in months. So I know it's kinda crappy, and I'll likely edit it later, but it's something.
> 
> For those of you who didn't know, Frontotemporal dementia shares a lot of symptoms with bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and initial MRIs can't always detect FTD.
> 
> Most of Claudia's actions in this are taken almost directly from actual experience with both my grandmother and my aunt.
> 
> Also. 'Wilki' in Polish= Wolves

Stiles was five when it started. He found himself watching his mother wander around his room, muttering under her breath, at two in the morning. “Mom?” he’d ask, and she wouldn’t answer. “Mama?”

Still nothing.

Then his dad would quietly enter his room and gently guide her back to bed.

The doctors called it sleepwalking. They said it was nothing to worry about. Stiles would just wake up in the early morning and listen to his mother whisper Polish words and run her fingers along the windowsill.

“Mama?” he’d say, and she never answered.

Then the nightmares started. Once, when he was six, she shook him awake, crying that the rainwater was poison. “Sweetie, don’t go,” she screamed. “You can’t leave the house. Please, honey. Do this for me.”

She spent the next four hours huddled in the bathroom. Stiles’ dad, a deputy at the time, knocked on the door, asking her to unlock it. “Claudia?”

She screamed louder. Stiles stood frozen on the top stair, watching unblinking as his mother drowned out his father’s pleas.

“We’ll die. We’ll die. We’ll all die.”

Not for the last time, Stiles had to call for an ambulance.

As they waited, he watched his father crumple in front of the bathroom door. Claudia was quiet, but they could hear the shower running, and Stiles knew his father could decipher the low muttering coming from her. Stiles only saw his father cry once before at Stiles’ uncle’s funeral. Now he could see tears fall silently down his chin. Stiles didn’t shed a single tear.

The same doctors who told them there was nothing to worry about ran tests. They said schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. They took an MRI, and there was nothing wrong. They said that was normal, that they would check again in six months for possible changes, but they didn’t expect much.

One doctor said dementia. But Claudia was thirty-two.

They put her on medication: a tranquilizer for the sleepwalking, an antipsychotic to help with the “episodes,” and a couple of other chemical suppressants to regulate the chemical balance within her brain.

She went to therapy once a week. Then twice a week. They kept messing with her medications, but Stiles still woke up to his mother muttering in Polish and pleading him not to die.

Six months after Stiles called for that first ambulance, they did another brain scan. When his father took her to the hospital, she clung to his arm so hard, they had to sedate her. Although his father never showed any pain, Stiles knew she gripped hard enough to bruise him.

As they sat in the uncomfortable cushions of hospital chairs, Stiles asked, “What’s wrong with Mama?” He looked over at his dad to see tears stream down his face. Stiles still had yet to cry. Instead of answering, his dad hauled Stiles into his lap and hugged him.

That was the day he met Melissa McCall. She smiled at him and tried to keep him content. She got him food from the good server in the cafeteria and winked at him as they waited. After over an hour, she told him that she had a son Stiles’ age. Stiles hated her.

When the doctors came to talk to them, Stiles was left behind in the chair. Melissa tried once again to talk to him. “I want my mom,” he shouted. “Not you.”

She left him alone after that.

Another forty minutes passed before Stiles saw his parents leave the doctor’s office. Claudia was lucid and smiling sadly at Stiles. He saw a pile of prescription notes in her hand, and he finally began to cry.

\---

Three months passed and Stiles started second grade. Mrs. Dawson assigned them a family tree project and told them to interview as many people from their family as possible, including members of their extended family.

She had them write out how many members they had in their family, their relationship, and if they were still alive. Stiles made a list:

_Mikah Stilinski, cousin, yes_  
 _Shannon Stilinski, uncle, yes_  
 _Marianne Stilinski, aunt, yes_  
 _Dominik Orzechowski, uncle, no_  
 _Gaweł Orzechowski, grandpa, no_  
 _Ada Orzechowski, grandma, no_  
 _Andrej Stilinski, grandpa, no_  
 _Alice Stilinski, grandma, no_  
 _Skylar Stilinski, dad, yes_

He got to his mother and paused.

_Claudia Stilinski, mom, sometimes_

That was the first call home.

Stiles tried to do the project; whenever his dad wasn’t pulling a shift or campaigning for sheriff, Stiles would try to sneak in a question or two. “Where are we from?”

“Beacon Hills.”

“What country?”

“United States.”

“No, Dad. Heritage.”

“Oh. Poland.”

“Mama too?”

“Mama too.”

Stiles tried calling his uncle Shannon one afternoon for help. He hadn’t talked to his uncle in over a year, but he remembered how to find the phone number in his dad’s planner. Stiles was supposed to be next door as his parents went to another hospital visit when he called up his uncle.

“What, Skylar?” His uncle’s rough voice shook as he racked out a cough. Stiles could almost see his uncle pull a drag from a cigarette.

“Uncle Shannon?”

In a split second, Shannon changed. “Hey, Bucko. What’s up?” Shannon always called him ‘Bucko’ because he couldn’t pronounce his given name.

“Can I ask you some questions about our family? It’s for school.” Stiles held the list of questions in his hand, his pencil waiting expectantly on the desk in front of him.

Shannon sighed. “Can’t you ask your dad?”

“He’s busy.”

“So am I, Bucko. Sorry I can’t help.”

“What about Auntie Mary?”

The next day, Stiles crossed out Marianne’s name on his list. That was the second call home.

Mrs. Dawson didn’t know better when she handed out the interview questions with a place for both ‘MOM’s answer’ and ‘DAD’s answer.’ Stiles thought Claudia was having a one of her better days when he went to interview her.

“When did your family come to the United States?”

“When the bombs fell.”

“Where did they first live when they came here?”

“In Hell.”

That was the third call home.

Mrs. Dawson kept sending him to the school counselor for attention problems. The school counselor kept sending him back with a note to give to his dad about seeing an actual licensed therapist. Stiles gave one to his dad once, and when he saw his father’s face go pale, he always ripped up the rest. There were five ripped up notes before October.

On Halloween, the deputy had to work so Stiles was left with Claudia. All three of them agreed not to go trick-or-treating since Claudia had the tendency to get lost. After she broke down crying when she couldn’t find her way back to her car in the grocery store parking lot, there were even more doctors’ visits. Stiles learned that the one she saw the most often was a neurologist.

Stiles still dressed up in his Spiderman costume, everything except the mask, and he ate pizza and watched movies. Occasionally someone would ring the doorbell. Claudia would sometimes get up and hand out candy. Other times, Stiles had to remind her.

He saw Melissa again. She tried to introduce him to her son. Stiles quickly closed the door.

During one of the lulls in trick-or-treaters, Claudia turned her entire attention to her son. “You’re a Stilinski, but you’re also an Orzechowski. So you’re half a Stilinski. You’re a Stiles.” She laughed for five minutes. The nickname stuck.

He had his first panic attack when Mrs. Dawson refused to call him Stiles.

Near Thanksgiving, Claudia wouldn’t leave the shower because she swore she wasn’t clean. Skylar gently suggested taking a bath as an alternative. She punched the wall so hard that she broke some of the tiles and cut her hand. When she still wouldn’t leave the shower and kept punching the wall, Stiles called for another ambulance.

Two days later at school, Mrs. Dawson asked Stiles what he was thankful for. Stiles said, “Whatever my dad drinks at night because it helps him sleep.”

That phone call was to child services.

In December, Stiles was pulled from school after a boy called Claudia crazy. Stiles got three good punches in, one strong enough to break the boy’s nose. They moved him to an alternative school and signed him up for twice-weekly sessions with the school psychologist. His Christmas present was a prescription for Adderall.

Two days before Christmas Eve, Stiles’s dad asked him how excited he was for Christmas. “What do you think Santa got you?”

“Santa doesn’t exist,” Claudia said from where she sat at the table. She was knitting. The therapist said it might help her focus better on one task. She was still on the first row when she threw the knitting needle at the window.

When she fell asleep that night, Stiles walked into her room. He didn’t believe in God. Too many nurses just told him to pray, but he didn’t understand what good it would do. He always got in trouble for talking too much. What if this was God’s way of punishing Stiles for always talking? Instead, he started a different nightly ritual. He would wait until she fell asleep, even if it meant waiting until three in the morning, and he would walk up to her bedside and whisper, “I love you, Mama.”

They went to the sheriff’s department Christmas party. One of the deputies commented, “Lucky Stilinski doesn’t talk much, given how his wife and son don’t let him get a word in edgewise.” They left rather quickly.

Claudia celebrated New Year’s by screaming “FUCK” from the rooftop.

She made it another month before she was hospitalized. Stiles found her in front of the oven, rocking back and forth, muttering in Polish. Her clothes were disheveled and the same as what she had been wearing for the past two days. Her brown hair was trimmed horrendously, a pair of scissors skirted across the floor towards the sink. There were clippings everywhere. “Mama?” he asked, staying in the doorway.

She flung around. “Wilki,” she said. “Wilki. Don’t go in the woods.” She grabbed his shoulder and began to shake him. “Promise me. Don’t go in the woods.” Stiles began to feel dizzy as she continued to shake and repeated like a broken record, “Promise me. Promise me. Promise.”

Stiles’ dad had to call the ambulance that time. They didn’t let her out. They moved her to the adult long-term psychiatric ward. She hated it, and she let everyone know it.

Stiles turned eight and the only person who noticed was his mother. “Happy fucking birthday,” she said. That night, when Stiles whispered in her ear, she woke long enough to whisper back. “I love you, too. Now, shut up.”

It was the first time in nearly four months that she said she loved him. Stiles would take it.

In April, when Stiles came to visit, she called him Dominik. He quickly and quietly left the room.

He later heard Skylar talk to the neurologist. “I thought you said Frontotemporal dementia doesn’t affect long-term memory.”

“It doesn’t.” The neurologist sounded nasally and condescending. “It typically causes swings towards either mania or depression. Claudia is very much manic: speaking quickly and for extended periods of time, her disinhibition, and her lack of sympathy and empathy. I know that the speech will begin to deteriorate soon, but what category miscalling her son’s name seems to fall under is lack of sympathy and empathy.”

“So that whole thing was her idea of a joke?”

“To put it crudely, yes.”

“Fuck.”

Stiles stopped breathing, hoping he wouldn’t get caught for listening in.

“I’m not a psychologist, but I highly suggest you limit the amount of time your son spends with Claudia for his mental health as much as hers. At the rate her condition is progressing, I would say she has at most a couple of months, and she won’t get better. In all likelihood, any lucky moment of lucidity is gone. Her speech is already beginning to slow, and she has difficulty finding the right words. Since this is a relatively new development, while the rest of the symptoms have been ongoing, we typically identify this as the point where the patient will noticeably begin to deteriorate much more quickly.”

Before he could hear his father’s response, Stiles sprinted to his mother’s room, nearly knocking a couple of other people over. She sat in her bed, tapping her fingers together. “This is how I know I’m not dreaming,” she said and kept counting.

“I love you, Mama.”

Her hands stilled, and Claudia looked up. She smiled, “I love you too, Stiles.”

Stiles’s father was elected sheriff. Despite what the doctor said, Skylar would almost always ensure that Stiles saw Claudia on a daily basis. In May, her speech slowed to a crawl. By June, she mostly swore. Every night, though, Stiles would say, “I love you, Mama.”

Sometimes he would get, “I love you, Stiles.” Sometimes just, “Stiles.” Sometimes just a look of desperation that spoke all.

In July, she screamed for nearly a full day straight.

In August, they went to visit her when Stiles’s dad got a call about a car wreck. He ran out, saying he would call a deputy to pick Stiles up. Both Stiles and Claudia watched him go from behind trapped eyes.

Three hours later, a deputy still hadn’t shown. When Stiles and his father last asked when Claudia might die, the doctor said, “Any moment.”

Claudia stopped counting her fingers. She was on a breathing machine and an IV. Doctors and nurses came into her room in fifteen-minute intervals. Stiles swallowed his tears. “I love you, Mama,” he whispered.

She turned her head his way and stared straight through him.

Four people attended the funeral: Stiles, Skylar, the priest, and at a distance, Melissa McCall.

At school, one boy asked him if he ever shut up. Stiles, remembering what the doctor said, refused to speak for three weeks. He had another panic attack. They made him see the psychologist three times a week. He overheard the school officials talk about keeping him at the alternative center until middle school, but they suggested Skylar sign Stiles up for an after school program at the local elementary school to keep him engaged with other children his age. Skylar signed Stiles up for chess club.

Most of the kids in chess club stared at him, remembering him a little from the fight that made him move schools. Others knew about his mother, stage-whispering that he was just as crazy. Lydia Martin ignored him. For the first time in his life, someone ignored him. Stiles loved Lydia Martin.

He made it through third grade on a combination of Adderall and Prozac. He met with the psychologist on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Chess club met on Thursday. His dad drank every night.

Stiles was signed up for summer school to keep the structure similar year-round. After a particularly bad night, Skylar told Stiles, “Thank Jesus your mother had a good stock investor or we wouldn’t be able to afford any of this.” He poured another glass of whiskey and turned back to the case he was working on.

Stiles tried to run away that night. He nearly ran into the preserve when his mother’s voice rang out, “Promise me.” Instead, he headed towards the I-5 junction on the other side of town. He didn’t even know where he would go. It was warm enough that walking at night in pajamas was not uncomfortable. He just figured he could walk to Wisconsin, where Uncle Shannon was. Maybe he and Auntie Mary got back together. A squad car picked him up after he walked two miles from his home.

They called his psychologist, and Stiles refused to explain where he was going. “Away. Anywhere but here,” he said. When asked why, Stiles shrugged. “I’m too much money.”

Two weeks later, Skylar signed up with an outpatient rehab facility. Three weeks after that, he overheard a conversation with a McCall. The last name sounded familiar.

Fourth grade passed in similar vein to the second half of third grade. Most of his teachers encouraged him to release his energy before coming back to class to work. They readjusted his medication, and that actually helped him remember how to smile. He went back down to twice-weekly meetings. His father rarely drank. Chess club moved to Wednesday afternoons. Stiles occasionally competed in tournaments, but he stopped for a while when he noticed his father was never there. He competed one last time when he realized that his father missed because the Hale house burned to the ground. Three of fourteen people in that family survived. Stiles thought for a morbid second that they now had same sized families. He wondered which loss was worse, but he quieted that thought when he decided ‘both.’

In fifth grade, they weaned him off the psychology sessions, from one a week to one a month to a final approval to move on to the middle school. His teachers prepared him to switch from class to class in crowded hallways. He saw fewer teachers as they worked towards readying him back into the regular public school system. In May, he and his father had a meeting with the school principal, the sixth grade principal, his counselor, his social worker, and the school psychologist. They put together a plan to place him in gifted classes and work with keeping him as structured as possible.

The summer between fifth and sixth grade was the first relaxing summer he experienced in three years. He pleaded with his dad to take him swimming. They added weekend swimming lessons to the new schedule they were setting up. Chess club still met on Wednesdays. Lydia Martin still ignored him. He still swore that he loved her. Stiles got a library card, and they put up a board in the kitchen to record the books Stiles finished. Stiles read true crime, and his father half-winced, half-smiled. Fridays turned into dinner at the station. Overall, Stiles was doing well.

On his first day of sixth grade, he met Scott. Scott went to the other elementary school in town and knew little to nothing about Stiles. They sat together at lunch and had Social Studies together. Their first homework assignment was to bring a picture of their family to class so they could project it for everyone to see. Stiles purposefully did not bring one. When Scott presented his, Stiles recognized Melissa and immediately placed the name of the man he overheard his dad talking to. Stiles had his first panic attack of the school year.

After he got back from the nurse, Ms. Edgwin asked him if he brought his family photo. Stiles said, “No.” He refused to talk to the class about his heritage. He found himself in the principal’s office next. After school, he and his social worker sat down with the teacher to explain that Stiles would not participate in any activity that involved discussing his family.

News spread through the middle school that he was just as crazy as ever. Scott stuck by him, and Stiles actually made a friend for the first time in his life. Slowly, he began to tolerate Melissa as they started hanging out outside school. Even more slowly, his dad loosened the structure they had set up for him.

By eighth grade, nobody cared about him anymore. They still said he talked too much or that he was just plain weird, but since he never had another outburst, they wrote him off as strange. He proclaimed to anyone who would listen that he loved Lydia because he knew that was safe, that the more attention he drew to the two of them, the more she would ignore him, pretend he wasn’t there. It was nice to not exist for just a moment. She left chess club, and he kept playing.

In ninth grade, Scott suggested trying out for lacrosse. Stiles laughed, knowing how bad Scott’s asthma was. The summer before high school started, Stiles tried signing them both up for advanced swimming lessons, but Melissa said that was probably not a good activity for Scott.

At lacrosse tryouts, Stiles almost immediately walked off the field when he saw the boy he beat up way back in second grade standing with a sneer on his face, but Scott was bouncing excitedly next to him; he couldn’t leave just yet. Besides, Stiles was looking forward to releasing all his pent-up energy. Maybe lacrosse wouldn’t be that bad of an idea.

Lacrosse was hands down the worst decision Stiles ever let Scott talk him into. He was awful, uncoordinated, and barely fit enough to keep up despite years of swimming. The coach was terrifying; the only kind of coach capable of acting like that was a coach that had won state four years in a row. Fifteen minutes in, he was ready to quit.

Scott pleaded with him through giant lungfuls of breath during their first water break. Stiles stayed only for moral support. He didn’t bother trying to do well. The coach reminded him of a less intense version of his mother, so whenever Finstock got distracted or off-topic, he’d bring him back.

When the list was posted identifying who made the team, Stiles narrowed his eyes when he saw his name and Scott’s. Scott, on the other hand, was ecstatic. “We made it! We made it!” Scott shouted straight into his ear.

“Well, yeah. We’re a tiny school. If you try out, you’re almost one hundred percent guaranteed to make the team,” Stiles said, noting who else was on the team. “Besides, it’s not like I can’t drop lacrosse, anyway.”

“Oh, no, Stilinski.” A voice cut in behind Stiles from where they were standing at the boys’ locker room door. A couple people still trying to spy the list scattered when the boy with a sneer turned to glare at them. “You’re staying on the team. You’re the only one who can handle Coach. Fuck knows why. I don’t even care why. You are staying on this team. Got it?”

Stiles nodded, and spotted strawberry blonde hair over the other boy’s shoulder. “Jackson.” Her voice carried over to where the three were congregated. “We’re going to be late.”

The boy, Jackson, turned to her. “Just a second. Jesus. I’m busy.” He grabbed Stiles by the collar of his shirt. “If you think you can try to get away with fighting me or pulling that kind of bullshit again, I will crush you and smear your insides along sidewalk outside. Any questions?”

Stiles shook his head. Jackson loosened his grip on Stiles’s t-shirt for a fraction of a second. “One more thing. If you go near Lydia, I will make your life a living hell.” Without another word, he stalked off.

Lydia ignored him. Stiles was still in love.

They made it through lacrosse and freshman year. Neither Stiles nor Scott played a single game, but they sat on the bench and cheered their teammates along. Every so often, Stiles would bring Finstock back from wherever his mind had wandered. Stiles didn’t think Coach even knew his name. Stiles was perfectly content with that.

During cross-country the fall of Stiles’s sophomore year, he set foot into the woods for the first time in his life. Most people who grew up in Beacon Hills had at least walked down one of the paths through the preserve at some point. Stiles powered through his mother’s desperate, “Promise me.” He ran fast through the trees, praying for the other side.

Finstock always yelled at him to pace himself. Stiles never did. He would run the preserve part of the trail to exhaustion even when he still had five more miles to run. At the end of September, Stiles finally relented and tried to pace himself through the woods. He found that he wasn’t half-bad at running.

Even with Mr. Harris refusing to keep his education and program notes in mind during class, sophomore year was going as well as it could. Finstock taught his economics class, and out of curiosity, he tested just how Finstock would react to receiving a paper with no relevance to the course but nonetheless incredibly detailed and well-organized. After searching through his brainstormed topics, Stiles wrote a paper about the history of male circumcision. Scott looked at him like he was crazy when he actually followed through with turning it in. Stiles could always provide the blanket excuse that his elementary teachers and his education team agreed that he should focus on what interested him and how to find valid and legitimate information about those interests. Most teachers hated when he used that excuse.

Winter break came and went. Scott made the mistake of saying he was bored and that there was nothing to do in Beacon Hills. Stiles had stolen a police scanner long ago so he could get in contact with his dad as quickly as possible without going through other people or getting him in trouble with his job. That’s when Stiles heard it.

After years of sneaking into the McCall house, Stiles had long ago mastered the art of scaling to the roof near Scott’s bedroom. “They found a body in the woods,” Stiles said and grinned at Scott.

That was hands down either the best decision or worst decision Stiles ever talked Scott into.


	2. I Watched You Drown

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is an add-on to the main story, expanding on Stiles's expulsion and transfer. This is from Sheriff Stilinski's point of view. This only adds information that I skimmed over in the main story; it doesn't start a new story or lend itself to further expansion.
> 
> There is a very briefly mentioned panic attack.
> 
> Also, I think I'm predisposed to only write sad things. If only I could write a decent joke. Oh, and if you didn't notice the, um, huge difference in writing style, that's because I actually had time to work through this blip/addendum a little more. I hope to edit the main story soon because it needs it a bit.

Deputy Stilinski received a phone call at his cluttered work desk. He jumped to pick it up and sent a couple of loose notes fluttering to the floor. Before he could answer, his hand froze, and he looked around. The rest of the office always politely turned away and busied themselves elsewhere whenever his phone rang. On the third trill, he finally managed to fumble with the receiver. “Hello?” his voice clicked on robotically.

“Mr. Stilinski?” a curt man asked.

“Yes.”

There was a sigh. “This is Principal Wallowitz at Prairie Trails Elementary. Your son’s been in a fight at school. We need you to come in for a meeting to discuss his ongoing behavior issues.” As though he could sense an interruption, the voice crept up a little in volume. “We would like to discuss the best courses of action to ensure the best health and education of your son.”

Deputy Stilinski looked up from his paperwork on a fender bender to the rest of the station. Although he knew it was merely courtesy that the open floor was empty, he still checked the blown up schedule taped in the sheriff’s window to confirm that there were three other officers working the same shift. “I’ll be right there.”

He hung up and moved to peek around the kitchen doorway. Sure enough, he found two officers huddled around the coffee maker. “Coffee’s shit today, Skylar,” one noted.

“Coffee’s always shit,” he said and poured himself a cup. He gulped down half what the tiny Styrofoam cup could hold in one go, blanching at the bitterness. “My son’s school called. I’ll be out for a bit. I’ll leave my radio on just in case.”

The deputies nodded, and thankfully went back to their desks without interviewing him; few of his coworkers even spoke to him much anymore. Skylar drank the rest of the coffee and crushed the cup in his hand.

Showing up to the elementary school in his uniform was probably not the smartest of ideas, but he didn’t want to waste time changing. When he checked in with the secretary, he felt like slapping the scrutinizing pity off her face. Undeterred by his slowly narrowing brows, she directed him down a couple of white painted cement hallways into an impersonal conference room with a plastic table and plastic chairs. Perched in their chairs like birds spotting a rustle in the grass were the principal, the SRO, the nurse, the school psychologist, David Whittemore, Mrs. Dawson, the school social worker, and in a seat far enough away from the rest of the group his son. There was blood on Stiles’s shirt.

“Please take a seat, Mr. Stilinski,” the principal said, motioning with a little movement to an empty chair. Skylar glanced at his son, who refused to look up from studying the industrial tile pattern of random paint splotches.

The SRO started first. Skylar knew him from the police academy, and he had to admit the officer was good at his job. “Today, during recess, your son got into an altercation with a student from another class, Jackson Whittemore—”

“He said Mama had cats in her head,” Stiles said steadily from his seclusion. “Mama doesn’t like cats.”

Skylar choked back his near hysterical bark of laughter after he saw David Whittemore’s face contorted into a combination of shame and fear. The SRO continued, ignoring the interruption.

“Your son punched the other boy three times before teachers managed to interfere and separate the two. One punch was strong enough to break Jackson’s nose. We had the nurse check his injuries before transporting him to the hospital.” He directed the last statement to David. Skylar flinched. Stiles kept studying the paint patterns.

David nodded. “My wife is with Jackson now.”

The principal cleared his throat. He was dressed in a sterile suit, the pleats of his jacket as straightly ironed as the man. Principal Wallowitz briefly glanced over to Stiles before staring a line at Skylar, sparing only a moment to take in the deputy badge. “Naturally this kind of behavior result in ten days OSS, out of school suspension; however, given the input from both Mrs. Dawson and Dr. Robson—” the psychologist nodded—“we have concluded that the environment this school provides may not be the best place for your son’s education.”

“Wait,” Skylar said, leaning forward to point at the straight-pinned man, “are you kicking him of out school?”

The principal quickly shook his head as David made a quick exit. “No,” the principal said. “We’ve discussed this—”

“Because it sounds an awful lot like you’re kicking him out of school.” Skylar raised his voice over Mr. Wallowitz, staring the principal down to stop himself from looking at his son. “Do you want us to home school him? Because I can guarantee you that’ll be much worse for his education than this goddamn place.” He put air-quotes around ‘education’ and refused to blink first.

Dr. Robson said, “We’ve submitted an application to the Miranda Alternative Learning Center for your son to attend there. They have a much more structured environment and can provide your son with a more individualized education. Someone with his home life would—”

“What about his home life?” Skylar growled. “And don’t think I haven’t noticed how nobody says his name. None of you can pronounce it, can you?”

Most of the room shifted in their plastic chairs, a couple metal legs scraping against the flooring. Mrs. Dawson, in a dress a little too dowdy for her age, leaned forward. She tapped her hands together, each finger a long slender needle.

“My name is Stiles,” Skylar’s son whispered from his world. Mrs. Dawson pretended he hadn’t even spoken.

“Gaweł is a smart boy. He’s probably one of the most intelligent children I’ve ever taught, but he’s a bit volatile. No, please,” she said, directing a pointed needle towards Skylar. “Let me finish. He has some difficulty expressing his emotions. It’s not just the attention issues, although those also pose some problems. This fight is not an isolated incident. He has screamed at other students, and threatened to bite some of his classmates. They’re scared of him, and honestly, they seem to have every right to be. He has very severe extenuating circumstances, and he’s coping with them in very self-destructive ways.”

Skylar swallowed. “Shouldn’t that be coming from him?” he asked, waving at Dr. Robson.

Mrs. Dawson shrugged. “Perhaps, but I’ve been the one to see the majority of his behavior. At first, I sent him to meetings with his counselor, but as his outbursts escalated, I sent him to see Dr. Robson whenever an issue arose.”

Dr. Robson watched Stiles as he said, “I’ve been sending Stiles home with behavior reports and suggestions for action. Have you been receiving them, Mr. Stilinksi?”

“They made him sad.”

Everyone turned to look at Stiles. The skinny boy sat rigid and stared at the tiles, stiller than Skylar had ever seen him before. Mr. Wallowitz carefully opened his mouth. “Would you care to repeat that, Stiles?”

Stiles swallowed and spoke louder. “I gave one to him, and it made him sad so I ripped up the rest.”

Skylar put his head in his hands and breathed slowly as the rest of the conference remained silent. The social worker, a weathered older woman who looked to still be in the profession merely to beat the odds, tapped a long fingernail on the table. Her voice raspy and smoke-stained, she said, “The Learning Center has accepted Stiles’s application.” She looked at the boy when she said the nickname. “They’ve agreed to provide him with a low stress environment and counsel him in safe methods of coping with trauma.”

“My mama’s not a trauma,” Stiles spat.

Mrs. Dawson shot the social worker a scathing glare as Skylar watched his son wind himself up. “Hun,” the social worker said, “what’s happening to your mom is traumatic.”

“She’s my mama,” Stiles said, the pride in his voice breaking Skylar. “She loves me. She’s sick, but she’ll get better. She’s the best. She’s my mama. She doesn’t have cats in her head.” His breathing became loud and raggedy. “Daddy?” he wheezed and burst into tears.

Skylar shot out his chair, the metal and plastic scraping as it toppled over, and he pulled his son to his chest. The rest of the room watched in tense anticipation as he worked his son down from a panic attack. He rocked the boy and whispered hushes in his ear. It worked for Claudia; it might work for Stiles.

Skylar signed the papers to transfer Stiles to the alternative school. (“There may be additional fees for bussing—” “Yeah. Whatever. Shut up.”) He took his son by the hand and led him away from conference room. The secretary tracked their movements until they turned a corner.

Once they were far enough away, Stiles said, “Did you know a group of crows is called a murder?” Skylar squeezed his son’s hand, noting just how observant the little boy was.

They stopped by the station so Skylar could clock out officially and pick up the fender bender paperwork. Tara at the front desk winked at Stiles and asked him how school was doing. Stiles made eye contact and lied. “It was fine.” Hesitance briefly passed over her expression before she quickly covered it with the promise to always help him with his homework.

The two piled back into the cruiser, a stack of file folders at Stiles’s feet. Receipts from the local burger joint overflowed from the cup holders. Skylar quickly stuffed them into the glove compartment. He sighed and turned onto the main street. “Some day we’re going to go to a baseball game,” he said to the still air. “Then I’m going to teach you how to deal with bullies the appropriate way.”

When they got home, Skylar told Stiles to go upstairs. Claudia sat on the couch turning the television on and off. He saw the stains on the shirt she took from his drawer to wear. As she clicked the remote with one had, she tapped the fingers of her other hand to her thumb. He leaned over the back of the furniture to stroke her hair. Her hand paused for a moment before she pushed the button again.

The whiskey in the cabinet ran low, and Skylar poured a large helping. The noise in the other room flickered. When it stopped, he peeked around the kitchen doorframe to see Claudia crying.

“I’m going to die,” she whispered.

Skylar knocked back the whiskey and thought that sometimes, all anyone can do is hold their breath and watch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IEP meetings at schools run very similar to the meeting portrayed in this "chapter." There's usually more swearing and threats of lawsuits involved, though.

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about adding Heather, but then I decided not to. I'll most likely add more to this, but I just really wanted to write what Stiles's childhood would be like with his mom.
> 
> Also, I really want to update this, but I don't have any time that isn't devoted to making lesson plans and helping family members move. I have a huge project to complete in two weeks, but I hope to update after that project is done.


End file.
